And now, for something completely different!

Your social media mod also happens to be your spreadsheets mod, so I thought I would share some numbers in advance of creator reveals, which will be around 12:00 p.m. (noon) EST on Wednesday, December 20—or, in about 13 hours—because your AO3 mod is otherwise occupied tonight. We would like to thank you for your patience and understanding!

You all are amazing:

This ship, with its scattered but interconnected communities across different social media platforms, never ceases to impress, and it is a pleasure being part of it. My mind is truly blown by these numbers and the creative power that they represent ♥︎ See you at creator reveals!

P.S.:

DINNER IS SERVED

as always, our heartfelt thanks to the writers and artists who worked so hard to pull together the feast we are about to enjoy! incredibly, everyone was on time this year!!! so some extra special gratitude from your mods—it has been an honor and a privilege organizing this event!

remember to give your compliments to the chefs, and please feel free to drop by the discord server if you'd like to talk to other exchangers and enjoyers about this year's feast or songxuexiao in general!

creator reveals will be in a few days, so stay tuned!

It's deadline time! Massive thanks to everyone who scrambled to get your work in, and to everyone who checked in with us to request an extension. For those of you still working away, please get in touch as soon as possible if you're having a problem. We have pinch hitters on standby, but we'd like to give them as much time as possible to get something done if we need their services.

If you requested an extension, you have until December 12 at 11:59 p.m. EST to get your work finished. If that won't be enough time, you can submit a second extension request through the form for an additional two days. Anything beyond that will require discussion with a mod, and approval will be on a case-by-case basis.

If you are pinch hitting, you have until reveals. Please get your work in as soon as possible—the earlier the better, for your mods' sake!—so that reveals can go live on December 17.

Thanks again, all! We're so excited to feast with you!

Guess what's only one week from today? That's right, assignments are due at 11:59 p.m. EST on December 10! If you need to check the exact time, you can find our countdown clocks here.

If you know you won’t be able to finish on time, but are determined to have a piece turned in before reveals, you can request an extension—we have grace time built into the schedule on purpose. We've made some small tweaks to the process to streamline things behind the scenes. Request an extension using this form, and be sure to read everything thoroughly.

If you won't be able to get your assignment done at all, there is really and truly no shame in defaulting. Life happens! We get it. Please default as soon as possible to give us time to find a pinch hitter for your assignment. To default, go to your assignment page on AO3, find the assignment for Songxuexiao Exchange 2023, and click the "default" button.

Please note that if you have not requested an extension and do not have your assignment submitted by the deadline, we will default you and assign a pinch hitter instead. The absolute latest deadline for requesting an extension is 11:59 p.m. EST on December 10. Please do not make us chase you down. Ghosting your daozhang is very rude; Xue Yang won't like that.

Remember that all you're required to submit for the exchange is one complete art piece or story of at least 1,000 words. Your gift does not have to be an epic! If you're feeling overwhelmed by the scope of your plans, consider cutting things down to one illustration or one or two scenes and creating something smaller. You can always come back to a concept to expand on it later.

Now, about the grace time! If you're very nearly done, don't stress out. There are six days between the due date and reveals, and your piece does not have to be polished to a perfect shine to be considered "complete by the deadline." Here are some examples of works your mods would consider "complete" if they are submitted by December 10:

✅ My story is finished and I'm waiting for comments from my beta before I make my final edits. ✅ I've uploaded a photo of my traditional art piece, but won't be able to get to the library to scan it cleanly until Tuesday. ✅ My story is complete, but I need to fix my formatting because I copied it directly from Word and my line breaks got scrambled. ✅ My art is ready to go, and I'd be happy to post it as-is, but if I have time I want to make some small refinements. ✅ Everything else is done, but I still need a summary and a fucking title.

If this is the approximate state your piece is in: congratulations! You can complete your final polish on your own before reveals, and don't need mods to check in with you. You do not need to request an extension.

Here are some examples of works that would not be considered "complete":

🚫 I've only posted one chapter of a three-chapter story. 🚫 The art piece I have submitted is clearly a work in progress, and I would not be happy to give it as a gift. 🚫 My fic draft is theoretically finished, but it still has [bracketed notes] about things I need to add or change. 🚫 I've finished the art for my comic, but haven't added any of the necessary dialogue or effects yet. 🚫 My story is "finished," but I'm not happy with it and am planning to do some major rewrites before reveals.

If this is the approximate state your piece is in, you must submit an extension request and commit to the new due date.

We're sure you're all working hard, and we're cheering you on! We're almost there, you can do it—just think about the feast to come! Good luck!

It is time to talk about Songxuexiao Exchange treats again!

In the context of an exchange, a treat is an extra gift created for a request that wasn’t assigned to you. If you’re finished with your assignment and looking for more to do—or if you don't have an assignment and wish you did—why not check out some more prompts? (You should, of course, prioritize your assignment or any pinch hits you’ve picked up over treats.)

When you sign up for an exchange through AO3, the prompts you submit with your request can only be seen by the mods and your gifter; treats are an additional opt-in. If you want to make your request available for treats, you should submit a letter (usually a publicly viewable Google doc or a blog post) with your prompts to this form. Having linked to the letter in your AO3 sign-up is not enough to have it included in the treats list—you still have to submit it to the form! Also, for everyone’s convenience, please make sure your AO3 username is visible somewhere on the page.

The list of prompts available for treats this year can be found here.

Are you interested in helping the Songxuexiao Exchange cover our bases? Can you come through for us when we’re thrown a curveball at the bottom of the ninth? ⚾

Sign up as a pinch hitter anytime between now and December 10 to hear about last-minute assignments—we’d love to have you on deck!

It’s time to get cooking, everyone—ASSIGNMENTS ARE NOW OUT! 🥘

If you’ve checked your inbox (including spam folders) and still don’t see anything after a half hour or so, you can contact us on Discord or at sxxexchange@gmail.com.

CREATOR SIGNUPS ARE NOW CLOSED. Assignments will be sent out on Monday, October 23. We are so excited to see what everyone makes!

Please note that you can still sign up as a pinch hitter or offer beta-reading services throughout the exchange!

SIGNUPS ARE NOW OPEN FROM TODAY THROUGH FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20!

CREATORS (both fic and art): sign up here

PINCH HITTERS: sign up here

BETA READERS: to offer your services, you can join our Discord server here or send us an email at sxxexchange@gmail.com

For writers, the minimum is one thousand words. For artists, the minimum is "one finished piece" — whatever that means for you & your art.

Here are our FAQ & rules, but feel free to reach out if you have more questions!

Yi Citizens!! We're back!! Sign-ups open OCTOBER 13 for the Songxuexiao Exchange, fourth edition, so start working on those prompts!!

Songxuexiao Exchange 2023 on AO3

Schedule

Hello! Sorry for the lateness of this answer, mods have had a lot of big life stuff happening recently and we're not as active on socials during the exchange off season.

First of all, YES: barring some sort of unforeseeable disaster of circumstances, the exchange will be running again this year. You can expect it on approximately the same schedule as previous years, which means you will start seeing promotion for it in September and signups will open mid-October. Keep your eyes peeled for a schedule update sometime soon.

A letter is an optional part of your exchange signup that you can use to add more detail about your likes and DNWs, compile all your requests in one place, and share your requests with people who aren't your gifter. When signing up for the exchange on AO3, there will be a space where you can link a letter if you so choose. You are not required to link a letter, and many participants don't—as long as you fill out your requests in the AO3 signup form, your signup is considered complete. The letter is an extra writeup that you can include if you want to, or if you want your requests to be available for treats (since the exchange requests on AO3 are not public, your requests can't be seen by anyone but the mods and your gifter unless you share them somewhere else).

When the exchange opens for 2023, there will be a sample letter available to view if you need help with writing your signup or want to know what sort of information people often include in their letters!